Saturday, September 29, 2012

Before and After

Cherry Pie. I spend so long making sure it's ready for the world ahead of it. Thoughtfully mixing the dough, gently laying the thin crust into the pie tin, ever-so-carefully cutting the top crust's lattice pattern, and then slowly and methodically crimping the two crusts together to make sure all the cherries are safely tucked inside. And then, it's time for the oven. "Good luck in there," I whisper as I shut the oven door. 

An hour later, I open the oven with excitement and an ounce of anxiety... Did it burn? Did the berries explode out of the crust and form nothing but a bubbly jam puddle on the bottom of the oven? But out comes my pie -- still beautiful, just a little hotter and shinier than it started.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Eating through Thailand


This summer I took my first, but certainly not my last, trip to Southeast Asia. My travel buddy and I picked Thailand as our destination because of its reputation for beautiful beaches, sacred temples, kind people, bustling markets, lush jungles and $5 hour-long massages. But mostly, I went to Thailand to EAT.

And eat I did... I sun-bathed on hammocks and spooned the "pet-pet" (very spicy) coconut milk curries into my mouth while lounging on the shores of the southern islands. I gobbled up "street-food" in Bangkok while standing in the steady stream of people coursing down Khao San Road, ordering plate after plate of pad thai noodles (for less than $0.50 each) from cooks with portable wok carts. I devoured the Chiang Mai regional specialty, kow soi -- a chicken soup with aromatic spices and crunchy noodles -- while traveling through the northern cities of Thailand.

Deep-fried bananas with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk. Green papaya salad with lime and peanuts. Mango sticky rice. Green curry for breakfast. Savory bundles of chicken stuffed into balls of rice and wrapped up in banana leaves. Sweet. Sour. Salty. Spicy. I did it all.

And then, I learned how to make it myself. My travel buddy and I enrolled in 2 different cooking schools: one school in downtown Chiang Mai and one located on "Sammy's" organic farm. Our cooking teachers took us on tours of the markets explaining why the rice vendor's 12 seemingly identical buckets of rice had drastically different price tags (based on the age and location of the harvest), how a certain Thai fruit (the durian) smells so foul it is illegal to open one up on public transit, why the kaffir lime is superior to all other limes because of its bumpy fragrant skin and flavorful leaves, which varieties of basil should be used to optimize the taste of each dish, and how the production of coconut milk has evolved from squishing the coconut meat between your fingers to using modern machinery to quickly produce liters and liters of this Thai cooking staple.

And now, I dream of Thailand and stir up curries and memories in my Oakland kitchen.